OWP 2022: Leading For the Future

→Sustainability People

ACTION POINTS 1

PROBLEM SOLVING Reflect on recent situations in which you could have used coaching to let a team member find a solution for themselves. PROGRESSION SESSION Make a list of development goals for each of your team members: where do you want/need to see them in one year, then two years, from now?

2

WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION? Good leadership is about developing an (informal) authority that people want to follow, rather than relying on your formal authority that people must follow. Practical tools such as the GROW framework and a balanced portfolio of conversation styles (e.g., those by John Heron) help leaders to coach team members through transformations. Using questions – open, follow-up, and closed – helps to sound out the cognitive and emotional context of a difficult situation. This not only creates a better understanding of leaders for their team members (coachees), but the coaching questions help the coachees find solutions for themselves. Remember the process of getting to that solution and repeat it, if necessary; whereas if they are told the solution, it may only help once (more often than not, a ‘told’ solution is easily forgotten). Many leaders are initially surprised how well asking, being silent and listening works.

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